Temp mail fails in two ways, and the fix depends on which one you are seeing. Either the site refuses the address at the form, or it accepts the address and the email never shows up. Your current inbox is at the top of this page, so you can try each step as you read.
If the email never arrives
First find out whether the inbox or the sender is at fault. Send a short message from your own email account to the address on this page. If it arrives within a minute, the inbox is fine and the problem is on the sending site’s side.
- Compare the address on the form with the one on this page, character by character. One wrong letter sends the message somewhere else
- Check the countdown. If the address has expired, create a new one and ask for the email again
- Press Refresh above the inbox. Mail normally appears by itself, but a dropped connection can pause live updates
- Wait a few minutes, then ask the site to resend once. Many sites limit how often you can request another
- Press Change, pick a different domain and start the sign-up again
Why waiting doesn’t always help
When a first delivery attempt fails, the sending server tries again later, and the email standard (RFC 5321) suggests leaving at least 30 minutes between tries. Your free address lasts 30 minutes, so a message caught in that gap can easily miss it. Asking for a new email is usually faster than waiting for the old one.
A different cause looks the same from your side. Some sites accept a temporary address at the form and then quietly never send to it. If your test message from your own account arrives but the site’s email doesn’t, even on a second domain, that is the likely explanation, and no amount of refreshing will fix it.
If the site rejects your address
The message varies: “please enter a valid email”, “this email domain isn’t supported” or “disposable email addresses are not allowed”. All of them usually mean the site checked your domain against a list of known temporary email domains. Public lists like this are maintained on GitHub and hold many thousands of domains, and commercial email validation services keep their own. Lists grow over time, which is why an address that worked on a site last month can fail today.
Sites do this for fair reasons, mainly to keep out spam sign-ups and to be able to reach their users. You can press Change and try another domain once, but if the site still refuses, take that as its answer. It wants an address it can reach later.
A better fit in that case is a plus address from your own mailbox or a forwarding alias. Either one keeps your main address off the mailing list to some degree, and the site gets an address that stays reachable.
Limits that can look like bugs
| What you see | What’s going on | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| You can’t send or reply | Addresses are receive-only | Reply from a regular mailbox |
| An attachment is missing | The free inbox shows the message text, not file attachments | Ask for a link, or use a regular mailbox |
| The code isn’t highlighted | Its format wasn’t recognised, which can happen with unlabelled letter codes | Open the message and copy it by hand |
| Images are missing | Remote images are hidden until you allow them | Press Load images in the message |
| An older message has gone | Each message is deleted 30 minutes after it arrives | It can’t be recovered, so ask the sender again |
| Your address is different on another device | The address is saved in one browser only | Press Change and enter the same name and domain |
Frequently asked questions
Why does temp mail work on one site but not another?
Each site makes its own choice. Some check against a long list of temporary domains, some use a short one, and some don’t check at all.
What does “disposable email addresses are not allowed” mean?
The site recognised your address as a temporary one and only accepts addresses that last. Use a permanent address or an alias there.
Can you get a site to unblock this address?
No. A blocklist belongs to the site that uses it, so we have no way to change its decision.
No address appears on the page at all. What now?
The page couldn’t reach the mail server. Press Try again, and check your connection or disable any extension that blocks requests if the error stays.